Style

Setting and Dialogue

The play is constructed of three acts, with the last act having two scenes. All of the action takes place in one room, the living room of a house on a small apple farm in New York. Because of this, the characters must go in and out of a scene, as opposed to a movie in which the camera typically moves from one place to another. Important activities and conversations happen away from the living room, and the play's readers and audience see only the results. For example, Phillip's suicide occurs offstage, at a nearby pond, but the result of his suicide is apparent in the third act's second scene. This restriction limits what is actually known about the suicide, as it limits what is known about many other things in the play.